Report: Kushner attended Flynn’s meeting with Russian envoy

JTA - Jared Kushner, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, may have attended a controversial meeting in December between a Russian diplomat and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The meeting between Kushner, Flynn, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reportedly lasted 20 minutes at Trump Tower and was intended to “establish a line of communication,” White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The Times Thursday.

The FBI is currently investigating alleged Russian involvement in November’s U.S. election, although the reported meeting is unconnected to that inquiry. Flynn resigned after failing to disclose the nature of calls he had with Kislyak, in which he reportedly urged the Russians not to respond to sanctions imposed or planned by the Obama administration, saying relations would improve under Trump.

Kushner was not known to have participated in talks with Russian officials prior to the reported meeting.

“Jared has had meetings with many other foreign countries and representatives – as many as two dozen other foreign countries’ leaders and representatives,” Hicks said, adding that Kushner has not met with Kislyak since the December meeting.

In an interview with the Times of London, Trump said that Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband, would take on the task of negotiating peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority – an appointment Trump had previously floated due to the fact that Kushner “knows the region, knows the people, knows the players,” as Trump described in a previous interview.